


walk and talk

by screamlet



Series: A Study in Scarlett (Johansson et al.) [3]
Category: Actor RPF, Marvel Cinematic Universe RPF
Genre: Banter, CAPTAIN AMERICA: WINTER KISSES!!!!, Dialogue Heavy, Gen, Nonsense, POV Female Character, San Diego Comic-Con 2013
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-21
Updated: 2013-12-21
Packaged: 2018-01-05 08:36:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,503
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1091841
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/screamlet/pseuds/screamlet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The cast of CAPTAIN AMERICA: WINTER KISSES!!! hangs out at SDCC.</p>
            </blockquote>





	walk and talk

**Author's Note:**

> An excerpt from a WIP I'm never going to finish/burying forever. Set at SDCC 2013. The (ridiculous, very thin, you understand why I couldn't finish this) premise of the longer story was that everyone wants to have dinner with Tom Hiddleston, so many people that there's a _wait list_ , and Scarlett wants in on that shit. Other than that, it's... literally just a lot of banter. 
> 
> See the end notes for referential videos/gifsets. Features very tiny bits from Sebastian Stan and Cobie Smulders.

**SDCC 2013**

“Why, though,” Chris (Evans) asks. “What is it about my dumb labradoodle face that’s like, HEY LET ME HOLD YOUR BABIES.”

“This again,” Scarlett sighs. “Didn’t we just have this discussion? Are you—”

“Am I running for mayor of a 1940s cartoon town? _APPARENTLY_.” 

They’re walking through the safer-than-outside staging areas behind the fiery maw that is Comic-Con. Chris stays two and three steps ahead of their group so he can flail as much as he needs—Scarlett, Anthony, and the rest of their Captain America family are more than happy to let him.

“You know what that kid’s gonna do,” Chris says as he turns and walks backwards to turn the full force of his crazy eyes on Scarlett and Anthony. Their assistant-comics docent-guide-person turns around, too, to make sure Captain America doesn’t break his beautifully insured hair and skull on the concrete floor of the most glamorous warehouse in San Diego. Scarlett shoots them a look and they get a hold of their senses (UNLIKE CHRIS) and turn around. If he trips, she’ll grab him by the chest hair and _yank_.

“Grow up exactly as they would have without your divine intervention?” Anthony asks.

“Flash forward 15 years,” Chris begins.

“I think I’m physically incapable of that,” Scarlett says.

“I’m checking my email—”

“From your contact lens computer,” Sebastian adds.

“From WHATEVER,” Chris says. “And one of you has sent me a message—”

“RetroPictoGram,” Cobie corrects.

“And it’s a video—”

“LifeVid,” Scarlett says with jazz hands. “Why live when you can _BROADCAST_.”

“And it’s that baby, but now he’s like, an angry teenager—”

“You can just say teenager,” Anthony says.

“And he’s like, I AM THE BABY CAPTAIN AMERICA HELD AT COMIC-CON. _WHERE IS THE JUST WORLD I WAS PROMISED?_ ”

“Well, first of all, that’s not really what the Captain America mythos Marvel wants to deliver at the moment,” Scarlett says. “It’s more black-ops meets spangly tights, and the Steve Rogers sheen slowly being buffed away—”

“EXACTLY,” Chris says. “And that’s what I’ll have to explain to him in a series of quips as I fight the nemesis I inadvertently created in the 10 seconds I held him by the armpits at Comic-Con.”

“Okay, well, you think about that for a while,” Scarlett says, “I’m not texting your mom about it.”

“Don’t tell my mom.”

Scarlett takes her eyes off Evans for not even a _second_ when that moron collides with another group of backstage celebrities. He yells and flails before he’s caught in the strong and gentle arms of Tom Hiddleston. Scarlett reaches out and yanks Chris up by the shirt and chest hair anyway, just because it’s fun to hear him yelp every time she does.

“GAH,” Chris yells. 

“You have to watch where you’re going,” Tom says. His voice in this sweltering backlot evokes the thought of warm melted chocolate waiting to be fondue’d within an inch of its life. 

“Where’d you assholes come from?” Scarlett asks Tom and his entourage (aka Clark and his wife and a half-dozen other people still texting). “Are we all heading to the same press line?”

“Is that where this train is going?” Tom sighs as their groups merge. “Is there a Chili’s near here? I don’t think I’ve eaten.”

“Except for all those fangirls’ hearts,” Scarlett says.

“Can you _believe it_ ,” Tom crows. “I took them so by surprise they didn’t even bring their best fling-at-Loki panties. What a well-kept secret! I still can’t believe it worked so well! I wish I could buy all those flight attendants rubies for their silence.”

“Wow,” Anthony says. “I want rubies. I’ll keep all the secrets you want.”

Cobie and Sebastian mouth _RUBIES?_ at each other and choose not to understand.

“What would you do with a bunch of rubies?” Scarlett asks. “What would _anyone_ do with a bunch of rubies?”

Anthony thinks about it for one long moment before he decides: “Write a book: _The Hiddleston Jewels_. It’s a prose mockumentary of the passionate love affair that grew between this smooth-talking cottage cheese and all my ineffable handsome.”

“Do you know,” Tom says, laying a firm hand on Anthony’s shoulder. “Of the ever-expanding lexicon that binds all of human consciousness together, there is no phrase that better describes your entire spirit than _ineffable handsome_.”

“One of us has to be drunk right now,” Scarlett says to Tom. “And I think I’m fine.”

“Look at his face,” Tom says as he pulls Scarlett close and gently nudges her chin in Anthony’s direction. “Look at _him_ , and think of two more perfect words to describe his being.”

“Maybe later,” Scarlett says as she bats his hand off her chin. Tom probably washes his hands with a cleanser distilled from the tears of the oldest blue whale in the oceans, but she still doesn’t like anyone touching her face unless she’s contractually obligated to allow it. 

Tom beams at her all the same, bright and undiminished like the sun on a crisp day when it's just warm enough to realize that winter is over and spring is near. He asks, “And how is Comic-Con treating you, the closest to a living jewel the world has ever seen?”

(Some other day, when she hasn’t been awake for 16 hours, and isn’t obligated to glitter and banter for at least 6 hours more, she’ll sit Tom down with a bottle of gin and dig past the Lisa Frank excretions that fall out of his mouth the way swears fall out of hers—not today, though. Having this Fancy Brit GoGurt tell her she’s a red rock pulled from the earth and polished into something wonderful was great when, in reality, she’s a meatsack stuffed into a floral sack tailored specifically to give her as little room to walk and breathe as she technically needed.)

“Tell you the truth,” she says, “I could go for some Chili’s, too.”

Clark announces his presence by looking Scarlett right in the eye as he says, “NOPE. He’s ours.”

“Excuse you,” she says. She digs her nails into Tom’s side and ignores his honest-to-fuck giggling.

“We have Tom for dinner tonight,” Clark says. “We got dibs on him _last_ Comic-Con and _we’re_ taking him to Chili’s.”

“Uh, it’s a free country,” Scarlett replies. “It’s a free _Chili’s_ , and if you think Agent Coulson will get Loki a chicken sandwich before I DO?” Scarlett leans up against Tom and stage-whispers, “I’ll buy you all the chicken sandwiches you want, Tom. All of them. All of them will be from Chili’s.”

She watches as Tom’s eyes slowly close with near-delirious anticipation, but that curtain rod he was bred with straightens his shoulders out and he looks down at Scarlett. He’s about to vomit apologies all over her, apologies so profound and meaningful that _she’ll_ start apologizing to _him_ , so she holds up a hand.

“I know, you won’t go back on your word.” Scarlett rolls her eyes. “You _gentleman_.”

“I am... a little booked, dinner-wise,” Tom says.

“Until when?” she asks. “You know Evans ditched _me_ to have dinner with you?” She turns to Chris and holds up her hand again. “I’m NEVER like this, but I think it’s deserved since you _ditched a meal with me_ to have one with _him_.”

Chris drifts off to that secret garden in his brain where he keeps all the cherished and vaguely homoerotic thoughts he’s ever had, dinner with Tom _clearly_ belonging to both.

Tom squeezes his arm around Scarlett’s shoulders and says, “I’m free for dinner in November of next year.”

“Fuck you, we’re getting dinner _this_ year,” Scarlett says.

“I suppose I could reschedule my grandmother,” Tom says as he pulls out his phone.

“You can see your grandmother anytime,” she replies.

“I should feel worse about the dark, grandmother-bartering turn this has taken,” Cobie says, “But I want to see more? I’m a horrible person. Chris, you should take my baby away.”

“BABY-FREE 2013,” Chris announces. 

“All right, well, will you be in Los Angeles after the _Thor_ premiere?” Tom asks. “I can move my dinner then to brunch.”

“It’s a fucking date,” Scarlett says. They shake hands on it; Tom even meets her eyes, brings her hand up to his lips, kisses it, and continues to type in their dinner appointment with the other hand. “This better be the best dinner of my life.”

“You’re paying,” Anthony says.

“Well, yeah.”

“I’ve already got my name on the list for 2015,” Chris says.

“Everyone needs stability and long-term goals, Chris,” Tom says.

“I should feel insulted but I just want to hug you?” 

“I don’t know how we _haven’t_ hugged yet.”

“I’m a labradoodle,” Chris says as he starts to cry into Tom’s shoulder. “I’m a baby-holding [labradoodle](http://www.adorabledowneastlabradoodles.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/labradoodles_67-e1366679303378.jpg).”

“You are the very best labradoodle you can be,” Tom whispers into Chris’s ear.

Scarlett looks up from entering the date into her phone and stares at them. “I think I missed something,” she says.

“You didn’t,” Anthony replies.

“Also not surprising,” she adds.

**Author's Note:**

> Chris Evans: [YOU WANT ME TO _HOLD HIM_](http://tmblr.co/ZN64IyqHU38T)?  
>  Tom [manipulating a crowd of 6000 like a wizard](http://tmblr.co/ZoBwbyqNpt8u).  
> Evans, again, [making the dumbest faces](http://tonksceratops.tumblr.com/post/67213577420/).  
> Mackie being [completely wonderful](http://unnie.co.vu/post/56088591851/).  
> The cast members featured here of [CAPTAIN AMERICA: WINTER KISSES](http://tmblr.co/ZoBwbyqDbOqF) at their panel, including Scarlett and her flowersack dress.


End file.
